Improvement in wood pavements



H. M. s'ToW.

WOOD-PAVEMENT.

No. 191,194. Patented May 22,1877.

N. PETE-R8, PHOTO LITHOGRAFHER WASHINGTON D C Ulvrrsn Starts PATENT @Errea HENRY M. STOW, OF SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

IMPROVEMENT IN wooD'PAvsMENTs.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. i9 1.194, dated May 22, i877; application tiled March 14, 1877.

. with interposed long and narrow strips or blocks between them. Fig. 2 represents a vertical section through the same, with. the natural and prepared bed or foundation underneath the blocks and between the long strips.

My invention relates to a round and split block pavement, with intermediate thinner and longer blocks, in the construction of which the whole tree may be used without waste of material.

In preparing the material for paving, after removing the bark, all the limbs and branches that are over two inches in diameter, and so much of the body of the tree as maybe desired, are sawed up into lengt-hs or blocks six inches in length. The blocks that are over six inches in` diameter should be split or divided into twoequal-part, or nearly so, blocks, and those over nine inches in diameter into two, three, or more parts of equal thickness, or thereabout.

The main part ot' the body of the tree is sawed into blocks about two inches longer than the above first-mentioned blocks, and these longer blocks are then split into pieces about one inch thick and the width of the diameter of the blocks; or common one-inch boards maybe used instead ofthe last-named thin blocks; but I prefer the split blocks.

In constructing the pavement, after rst thoroughly rolling or ramming the roadway a, and if this road-bed is composed of clay, loam, or any very hard or firm substance, then it is to be covered with not less than two inches in depth of sharp sand and gravel, or

bank gravel and sand, b, and then rolled and made into the proper grade. Theil a row of either round blocks, as seen at c, or of split blocks, as seen at e, are placed on their ends upon this prepared roadway. Stretching across the street, and next to each of these rows of round or split blocks, is placed a continuous row of thin long blocks,f, with the ber of the wood vertical; then another row ot' short blocks, and adjacent thereto a row of long thin blocks, and so on alternately.

After ten feet, more. or less, of the pavementhas been laid, as above described, the interstices are all filled with sand and gravel, and` then all of the long blocks fare driven down until their upper ends are even with the short blocks c or e. The whole surface of the pavement is then covered with sharp sand and gravel, or with bankgravel and sand, not less than one inch in depth. The whole may then be ooded with Water, and the pavement again covered with sand and gravel, as before described; or, instead ot' the covering of sand and gravel, a covering of gravel and pitchor coal-tar maybe substituted.

- It is not necessary that the round blocks should constitute one row and the split blocks of any of the forms shownvshould constitute another row, for the blocks may be interspersed without detriment to the pavement, as the smaller blocks have the capacity of sustaining as much weight as the larger ones by my plan of construction, as the sand is relatively more compact under thesmaller than under the larger blocks, and what the smaller blocks lose in surface area they make up in the greater solidity ot their bed.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim is- A pavement composed of round and split blocks of wood, placed in separate rows or together, and held to their places by an intermediate row of thinner and longer blocks, as l and for the purpose described.

` HENRY M. STOW.

Witnesses:

THOMAS G. OoNNoLLY, HENRY H. BURTON. 

